Hiking PT Part Deux - (Korea) Day 127

A snapshot from RunKeeper showing the path we hiked down from 
Seoul Tower to our office on post.

Work call this morning was at 0630, not because of any meeting but because of some mandatory EO training we had to attend. Me and SPC Mick arrived at the office at 0630, picked up the office car as well as SPC Roy who just arrived in the parking lot. We drove to the movie theatre on post which doubles as the training center during the day for any training events. We watched some PowerPoint slides and learned all about "POSH" (Prevention of Sexual Harassment). The army is obsessed with acronyms, they use them for everything it seems. Half the time when I'm updating the events calendar, I have no idea what its for because all the titles are only acronyms. The training lasted only an hour, but was scheduled for two…so we were let out early. The best news I saw while I was at the theatre had nothing to do with sexual harassment though, I saw that they pushed back the free movies for a month. This means we get free movies through the month of April…that is good news.

When we arrived back at the office we had to setup for another meeting. Speaking of acronyms…this one was DADT. I had no idea until today it was for the removal of the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy that has been in effect. I guess we can ask now...and people can tell. This particular meeting was for the air force, I'm sure the army version will be coming soon.

After setting up for another meeting in another conference room I had a little free time to finish one SkillPort. I then went to lunch with SPC Roy and had Burger King of all things. I usually don't eat there, but a hamburger just sounded so good. Sometimes you just have to indulge. I ended up getting the burger, but I refrained from getting a milkshake…which took a lot of willpower.

When we got back I was asked to help bring back the new computers from being imaged. I was also asked to stay and help out so we can get them all setup. All of a sudden I get a call…it's an emergency. What's the emergency? They need my help to clean up from one of the meetings. This has to be one of the most frustrating parts of my job here. They give me a lot of lip service about having me help out doing anything computer related (i.e. 25B work), but there never seems to be any time for me to do so. After we finished cleaning up for the meeting we ended up leaving the office to change for another hike today. We started to run some other errands, but were called back to work to change some audio visual settings in our conference room for another meeting that was scheduled at the last second.

Once we finished with all that we headed out for the hike. This time we left with a KATUSA from some other office, a sergeant I had never seen before, our sergeant, SPC Roy, SPC Mick, and myself. It seems there are many ways to get up the hill to Seoul Tower and we took a different route up and a different route down than yesterday. I found out when we were at the top that my iPhone app “RunKeeper” actually works without my cell phone service on. I didn't think the GPS worked, but low and behold it does. So I was able to use it to track our decent. It took longer than normal because of a smoke break and a bathroom break for the unknown sergeant, but it was kind of neat to see the path on a map.

After the hike it was about 1730 and I headed back to my room. I was able to do what has become my nightly ritual…schoolwork, then watch a movie. Tonight's movie was Rambo 4…the last installment of the Rambo series. I had actually seen this when it came out on video, but I had to watch it again. There is lots of action, it starts off showing the brutal actions of government soldiers in a civil war in Burma. The scenes are very graphic and instead of just blood and guts you actually see people explode. Rambo is living in neighboring Thailand and ends up rescuing some aid workers who get kidnapped in Burma. Lots of heads and other body parts get blown off in the process. After the rescue he ends up going home and visiting his father for the first time in years…maybe since the Vietnam war.

The RunKeeper App mentioned above can be downloaded here

Brandon

I noticed on the picture above it states the climb was only 91 feet. I'm not sure how it grabbed that information, but it's way off. I had to do some research to find out how high it actually is. Seoul Tower sits atop Mt Namsan which is 243-meters high, which is about 797 feet. Much more than 91 feet and a lot of it is at a steep grade, so it is a pretty good workout...but not unbearable. I would suggest anyone who happens to find themselves visiting in Seoul to do the hike.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011 - 08:51 PM